Aeon

While Lucien and Finn are trying to keep the Rookery together, a Leukadaemon knocks Finn down into the chasm. It knocks Lucien to the ground and nearly kills him before H’ada and Proteus arrive to save him.

They return to Shadesteel in order to reach the failsafe and have to face down a Kyton Interlocuter who taught Fell and the others how to do grafting. The failsafe banishes all of the outsiders that had been in Shadesteel.

Afterwards, they gather the Bone Dogs and head to the Menagerie, where H’ada’s witch mother, Magga Gilda, has been working with her coven. Aeonian orcs and Varikar orcs are battling in the streets.
As they head forward to face Magga Gilda, they hear chanting towards her patron, Uabis’Bheist the Bloodborne God. The planar cannon of Mordant fires forward at the same time, creating a plane near the Spire of the Priory, and out of the portal to the new plane comes blood.

From the Spire of the Priory, the group sees the creatures of Shadesteel running amok. Lucien and Finn go to the Rookery to keep it safe. Xarizah goes to the Menagerie to find Ugothol. Nameless takes Relin Trias to a safe place. Sophia goes with Proteus and H’ada into the remnants of Shadesteel. They find Methusaleh Fell killed, along with Delta. They battle an Eater of Knowledge which has devoured both their brains.

Afterwards, Fell’s spirit communicates to H’ada through his Bone Man powers and leads him back through the undercity tunnels to Biothaumaturgicalopolis. On the way they meet Xarizah and Ugothol. Sophia uses her knowledge of the law to get passed the barricade into Biothaumaturgicalopolis and they go meet Dirge Limbeck. He tells them about how the planar cannon was taken away from him by Mordant. They get permission to access the psychoscope a second time.

Anchor is at the psychoscope with Mu and Nu, restoring Theta from his mind-blanked state.

Fell’s spirit enters the psychoscope, and through it, H’ada and Proteus entered into his mind. Meanwhile, the psychoscope creates three headless horsemen which Sophia, Ugothol, and Xarizah deal with.

Within Fell’s mind, H’ada and Proteus find a time before Everard fell, when Methusaleh and Eadric the paladin (who is now one of Stark’s fragmented personalities) had worked together. They convince Eadric to overtake Stark when the time is right. They convince Fell to create a failsafe for Shadesteel, and Proteus learns how to cure its condition. They also learn that it was Stark who released the failsafe, as one of the fragmented personalities was a cultist working for Asheren.

Proteus makes a deal with the strange child, who teleports them all back to Aeon. Lucien makes a deal with Sophia, who warns him that the Harmonium plans on arresting them all. Because of their assassinations, Mordant is claiming even greater justification for invasion, and their banishment is a stipulation the Aeonian government had to give,

She gives Lucien a note and a name, Baphon, which is their only way out of Carceri.

The Harmonium frees Guy Renard from his capture by Finn, and sends the Pale Dogs, H’ada, Finn, Xarizah, Proteus, and Lucien to Carceri. Proteus, Lucien, and H’ada arrive together and quickly find the Balacazar Syndicate setting up shop nearby. H’ada follows three of them to a watering hole surrounded by medics. The watering hole is a place of truce, and anyone breaking the truce dies.

Lucien talks to people at the watering hole and finds out where Baphon is—on top of a spire, several miles away. They trek there and H’ada’s spirits, more powerful on this plane, cause an earthquake which collapses the spire and forces Baphon to face them directly.

Baphon agrees to send them home to Aeon, which is unprecedented but most convicts don’t have infernal contracts written by Asmodean priests. However, he will only do it if they bring Relin Trias to him.

They return to find the Pale Dogs, who they send out to find Xarizah, Finn, and the flesh golem. The Balacazar Syndicate is nearby, and they intimidate Dmitri Balacazar and capture him. Since only their group is allowed to leave Carceri, the remnants of the Balacazar Syndicate, including Relin Trias, quickly join their group.

They ask Baphon three questions which he is bound to answer:

If we perform this task, will you let all of our people return to Aeon? Yes.
Where is Promtheus? In Hearthharrow.
Who is the biggest threat to Aeon? Three: Asheren, Fell, and Magga.

When they return to Aeon, they find the streets in chaos as the creatures in Fell’s laboratory have escaped.

H’ada awakens from a sleep spell to find a rope around his throat. As he fades out he finds himself called before the Death God himself for judgment. He is forced to accept his role as the Bone Man yet again, and this time without wavering.

Finn and Khalid, along with Khalid’s minions, enter Gaulleigne to save H’ada, Xarizah, and Proteus, but the entire execution was a trap to lure Finn there by his father. The two of them engage in a sniper battle. Proteus, still just a hand, escapes its cage and saves H’ada from the gallows while Khalid and his men battle Mordantian soldiers.

They quickly flee, with Khalid taking his people into hiding. H’ada, Proteus, and Finn find Xarizah unconscious. They also bind and take Guy Renard. They regroup with the flesh golem, who is slowly achieving sentience and language. It begs them not to take him back to Methusaleh Fell. They enter the abandoned asylum where an alchemist is performing work on the rest of Proteus’s body. Theta, mind-wiped, is there as well. Proteus is forced to make a choice between Finn and Theta as the mind-wiped Theta almost kills the gunslinger.

As they make their way out of the asylum, Proteus finds a small tunnel, and at the end of it, there is a blond-haired, blue eyed child strapped to a table with black ichor being taken out of its body.

H’ada, Xarizah, and Proteus make the trek to Gaulleigne. After asking questions of locals, they glean the information they need and proceed to sneak their way into the keep. Proteus is disguised as a broken golem and casts Skinsend to have its hand detach from the rest of its body and crawl about.

The broken arm is given to a guard to show to Renard and the other officials—Guy Renard, Arsenault Bastion-Berulo, Vendikon (Talbot Crawe in disguise) and Lothair duMarseus, the Inquisitor. Xarizah uses her shadow-jump to sneak into the room where the meeting is being held, and hide. H’ada climbs the tower wall.

After learning the attack plans, Proteus poisons the food, disorienting the four officials and making them turn on each other. Xarizah stabs Arsenault. H’ada leaps in through the window, then tosses Guy out into a pile of hay, and battles Lothair. Proteus keeps Talbot Crawe from fleeing.

However, the guards soon come to attack them and enter the room. The three of them leap out of the window and land in the hay, but, disoriented and prone, are surrounded by Mordantian guards who know they just murdered several diplomats.

Meanwhile, the rest of Proteus’s body is being dragged away to the abandoned Mercyglade Sanitarium.

Victakahn Songsteel arrives to tell them that Relin Trias has been tried, convicted, and sent to Carceri, a prison plane, for obstruction of justice. She also mentions, after prodding, that Ibrahaxis, her own mentor, has died, and it is time to fulfill what he wanted: the destruction of the Necronomicon.

Victakahn gets boats from the Harmonium and they head out to destroy the book. A pair of sea drakes slow them down. Victakahn pays them for a job well done and they return to Haven.

When they get back, they find a trail of blood leading inside. Vhereg Cambion stabbed Gerard Cass and panicked, taking him to Haven while searching for Finn. He believes that Cass knows about his double-crossing and has passed the information on to the Pale Dogs. Even as he panicks, Pale Dogs circle the neighbourhood and get into position, then lay in an assault on Haven. The heroes emerge, bloodied but victorious, and prepare for, perhaps, the final confrontation with the Pale Dogs.

As he is now the Bone Man, and must discard his former self, H’ada holds a funeral for himself, and discards of all his worldly possessions save those he himself has made. Afterwards, he and Finn go to his own wake.

One of Finn’s old friends, and an acolyte of Asmodeus, shows up to deliver the news that Relin Trias has been charged with obstruction of justice. Proteus is given a missive from Methusaleh Fell, but ignores it.

Lucien has an invitation to the funeral of Luther dan Eld, and invites Proteus along as well. Babau demons, the same that were found in The Forsaken’s tunnels, attack the funeral and try to assassinate Guy Renard. They manage to burn out his eye before Proteus and Lucien stop them. In return, Guy decides that Mordant is going to be leaving Aeon for good. Proteus gives a message to Renard to pass along to any self-forged living in Mordant.

Relin Trias tells H’ada that he wants to call in the favour H’ada owes him—he wants H’ada to swipe a ledger that Mordred Doul, a Pale Dog, has taken. He also tells H’ada that he’s called someone else in for the job, and if that person gets it first, the favour doesn’t count. The other person is Adelaide, H’ada’s old flame.

Khalid goes out to try to find the book and Mordred, with Proteus tagging along, while H’ada tries to find Adelaide. Khalid and Proteus are ambushed by Asheren, out for revenge after the recent murder of the other Forsaken. Khalid uses his psychic power to knock down several gargoyles and escape, but Proteus is left behind and knocked unconscious.

H’ada meanwhile sees a Mordantian ship that had been sunk during its attack on his home island of Tortoryn decades ago. His mother and several other people are on board. He swims out to the ship and engages in one-on-one combat with Lucaje. He’s beaten and almost dead when Anchor lands on the ship and sinks it, dragging H’ada down to the ocean floor with a ring of water breathing. From there, Anchor takes H’ada to meet his father, Jahga the Bone Man.

Khalid meets up with Adelaide, who he remembers from his time in Mordant. He uses psychic power to manipulate her into getting the ledger from Doul’s safehouse, but she emerges stabbed and only her troll-grafts keep her alive. He then commissions the Ugothol to do it. The Ugothol manages to do so, and a copy of the ledger is made before its return.

Proteus wakes up in Shadesteel, the underground facility run by Methusaleh Fell. Asheren sold the body of Proteus to Fell. He has Delta, another of the Self-Forged, with him. Fell offers a cure to the virus rampaging through Proteus if Proteus will use its alchemical talents to create a large bomb for a ballistae. Proteus accepts, and creates the weapon, and is allowed to link with Delta and finally understand what happened that caused its homeland to fall, and where its other brethren are.

H’ada undergoes training from his father to become the Bone Man, and then must end his father to truly gain the legacy which is his.

As the disparate groups finally return home, they are given the news that Luther dan Eld, the creator of the Eld Armistice which ended the war between Mordant and Aeon, has been murdered by secessionists.

The Ugothol tells the party that the Balacazar Syndicate has told the Forsaken that the party has the necromantic grimoire, and that they’ll be after them. As they prepare for an assault on their lair, they are surprised to see the Harmonium, led by the paladin Victakahn Songsteel, arrive instead. She wants the book destroyed and wants them punished for what they did to Ibrahaxis. After some negotiation (and the realization that the Balacazar Syndicate manipulated Victakahn) she agrees to help them against the Forsaken. They enter the caverns where they’re hiding and slay several of them.

On their way out of Biothaumaturgicalopolis, they run into Khalid Kasabian, who was lured there by the psychic energy unleashed by the psychoscope. He and H’ada recognize each other and join forces. He’s quickly put to good work manipulating Vhereg Cambion, one of the Pale Dogs hoping to step into Orion Clay’s place. They find out the Pale Dogs are financing some of their work through slavery. Khalid buys some of the slaves and sets them free. As they return home, the Ugothol has returned to tell them that he has news of the Balacazar Syndicate.